1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a material feeding apparatus including a material container as a hopper for a synthetic resin molding machine, especially, a small-sized molding machine wherein a material to be molded (hereinafter referred to as a molding material), i.e., a synthetic resin is sealably contained in the material container.
2. Background Art
When a molding material is shipped from a manufacturer to users, containers or bags each having a comparatively large volumetric capacity are generally used. Prior to each molding operation, a user relocates the molding material to a hopper, and subsequently, on completion of the relocating operation, the molding machine is driven to successively perform molding operations.
In the circumstances as mentioned above, in the case that a small quantity of molding material is consumed during each molding operation such as production of small lots of many kinds of molded articles, on a molding operation test or a trial molding operation is performed for a new molding die, useless consumption of the molding material is liable to occur. In addition, since the molding material once delivered to a user absorbs moisture while it is kept in storage, it is rarely used for molding operations directly from storage. This leads to the result that it is necessary that most of the molding material is dried directly before each molding operation is performed. For this reason, the molding operation can not be started until the molding material is completely dried, resulting in the efficiency of each molding operation being adversely affected.